BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — The Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority is making changes to how it handles maintenance requests after months of our reporting highlighting heating outages, leaking ceilings and other unresolved issues at several of its properties.
In a recent report, the BMHA found 94% of requests were resolved within 48 hours. That leaves about 61 emergency work orders not resolved within two days.
I met with BMHA Executive Director Gillian Brown, who says changes are being made to address concerns — concerns he became aware of, in part, because of our reporting.
"This was a rough winter for everybody in the city, and this was a rough winter for the BMHA," Brown said.
Brown says the winter exposed longstanding vulnerabilities in the agency's aging housing stock.
"It brings out the worst in old, not terribly well-built buildings," Brown said.
Between January and February, the BMHA received nearly 3,800 maintenance calls.
We reported on heat-related concerns at the Marine Drive, Sedita and Stuyvesant apartments, where Brown says a broken pipe flooded a boiler in late January and left residents without heat for hours. Residents described conditions that included no electricity, no heat and no working stove.
Brown acknowledged that while some emergencies are unavoidable, the agency's response must improve.
"It's not the kind of thing you really can plan for. What we can, and do plan for, and what we need to do better at, is our response when these unexpected things happen," Brown said.
WATCH: 'It was inexcusable': BMHA addresses maintenance frustrations
Brown says the BMHA has already begun implementing new systems to improve accountability, including a tool that allows employees to log work orders in real time using a handheld device such as an iPad.
"Yes, we're consistently making changes. We now have a system where our employees, our maintenance employees, can enter work orders as they see a condition. They can enter with a handheld, like an iPad," he said.
That kind of real-time tracking may have made a difference for residents like Hector Tirado, a Stuyvesant tenant who showed me liquid pouring through a hole in his ceiling that had gone unaddressed for weeks.
When asked about Tirado's situation, Brown did not hold back.
"There's no other response to say what it was. It was inexcusable. Again, there is no defense except to say that sometimes things fall through the cracks. We have something like 10,000 residents, we have 4,000 dwelling units at the BMHA, that's a lot of apartments, and sometimes things slip through the cracks," Brown said.
Brown said repairs started the same day the story aired. 7 News was there days later when those repairs were completed.
"It was a mess, and it shouldn't have been allowed to continue for the days or more than a week or two that it did exist for, and we've remedied it," Brown said.
Brown says the agency is committed to doing better going forward.
"We're striving now to increase accountability on all levels," Brown said.
The BMHA has faced scrutiny from city lawmakers over maintenance concerns and living conditions at several of its properties. Brown says the agency is working to fill around 14 staffing vacancies and will continue to work toward a more efficient response to resident concerns.
We first looked into conditions at BMHA properties because residents reached out to our newsroom. If you have something you want us to investigate, send an email to news@wkbw.com.
